Curiously both Tesla and SpaceX benefit enormously from government spending[1] to the tune of almost $5Bn of taxpayer money. And then Tesla paid zero income tax last year[2] and none in 2021 either[3]. And now Musk is taking the position that the government spends too much taxpayer's money and needs to be torn down.
Musk also did very well by plainly lying (which I would call market manipulation) about Tesla products; the Cybertruck video where Musk claimed it was faster than a Porsche while towing a Porsche was a lie[4]. A 2016 video demonstrating self-driving was faked[5]. Musk's statements about what the Tesla Semi can do were not just generous marketing, they are impossible[6], claiming 500 miles range and PepsiCo reports they can't even carry a load of Lay's potato chips for 500 miles and on heavier loads they can only travel 100 miles. Faked self parking videos, faked SolarCity videos, faked Optimus humanoid robot videos, faked CyberTruck towing an F150 video[7]. The Optimus robots at the October 2024 event were remote controled and remote-voiced by humans[8]. They walk like Honda Asimo robots walked 25 years ago but they're being spun like they are Boston Dynamics killers. Musk's talk of tentacle arms to recharge Teslas never turned into anything (though BYD in China has had public automated electric-car battery-swap stations for years now). Musk's talk of full self driving first promised, what, 2017? turned out to be misleading with cars not even having the hardware to do a good job of it. Musk's early plans for completely automated Model 3 factory faded very quickly with them reverting to humans in marquees.
Yes Musk has done pretty well with investors letting him get away with a lot of broken promises and taxpayers letting him get away with a lot of subsidies and customers letting him get away with a lot of shoddy products. Lucky for him the Tesla engineers were competent true believers(tm) and delivered decent Model 3 and Model Y but that should only give them a similar valuation to other car companies, shouldn't it?
All of this, and yet the rockets land on the ground, the cars sell and drive themselves, and the world is fighting for Starlink terminals as soon as there is some event going on. I wish more would manage to consistently fail upwards in such a way.
SpaceX makes money in four ways[0], billion dollar contracts with NASA for rocket design and manufacture, cargo and supply services for NASA, contracts with the US Department of Defense, and the US Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center. Most of its income is taxpayer money. And StarLink, though we might wonder if StarLink would be around without the taxpayer, and what SpaceX valuation would be if it was just Starlink.
Fidelity estimates X (Twitter) is worth 80% less than when Musk bought it[1].
The Boring Company has raised ~$795M of investment valuing it at $5.6Bn and in 7 years it has delivered a 2.4 mile tunnel under Las Vegas which cost $48M and $4.5M/year. It was going to use self driving Teslas but actually they pay drivers to drive the cars, to move 1-3 people at ~40 miles per hour, and The Boring Company subsidises it by another couple of million per year. This money could have bought a lot of buses which would move more people more cheaply. Bus Rapid Transit, but worse.
Almost as if he didn’t actually cause that to happen. I can imagine a world where thousands of competent professionals, working in areas they were already passionate about did the work. They did it by working according to their training, not according to “first principles.”
Their jobs and approaches were protected by middle/upper management constructing stories for Musk about how it was revolutionary, and all he heard was agreement.
I wrote three paragraphs with 8 links showing multiple lies, manipulation, differences between how Musk presents himself and what he says he supports (Randian superman), vs. what actually happened (taxpayer funding) and they post a one-line dismissive "who cares, he's rich, the ends justify the means".
That's not a good comment, especially in the light of dang's callout at the top of this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42992992 "don't post low-information / high-indignation comments that could just as easily appear in any related thread. Such generic comments make discussion less interesting and more activating.".
I can also now add to my list: and now an offshoot of X, xAI, released the most impressive thinking model people have seen in some time.
The issue is that one can write as many paragraphs as they want, if the goal of those paragraphs is to obscure some basic truths then they will gain:
- laudation from sycophants;
- mere rejection from "basic facts enjoyers".
Your dismissal of Musk's accomplishments and companies for political reasons is also a dismissal of all the people who have trusted him with their time and effort to build all those wonders. What they've accomplished is great, and it obviously would not have happened without him.
Musk also did very well by plainly lying (which I would call market manipulation) about Tesla products; the Cybertruck video where Musk claimed it was faster than a Porsche while towing a Porsche was a lie[4]. A 2016 video demonstrating self-driving was faked[5]. Musk's statements about what the Tesla Semi can do were not just generous marketing, they are impossible[6], claiming 500 miles range and PepsiCo reports they can't even carry a load of Lay's potato chips for 500 miles and on heavier loads they can only travel 100 miles. Faked self parking videos, faked SolarCity videos, faked Optimus humanoid robot videos, faked CyberTruck towing an F150 video[7]. The Optimus robots at the October 2024 event were remote controled and remote-voiced by humans[8]. They walk like Honda Asimo robots walked 25 years ago but they're being spun like they are Boston Dynamics killers. Musk's talk of tentacle arms to recharge Teslas never turned into anything (though BYD in China has had public automated electric-car battery-swap stations for years now). Musk's talk of full self driving first promised, what, 2017? turned out to be misleading with cars not even having the hardware to do a good job of it. Musk's early plans for completely automated Model 3 factory faded very quickly with them reverting to humans in marquees.
Yes Musk has done pretty well with investors letting him get away with a lot of broken promises and taxpayers letting him get away with a lot of subsidies and customers letting him get away with a lot of shoddy products. Lucky for him the Tesla engineers were competent true believers(tm) and delivered decent Model 3 and Model Y but that should only give them a similar valuation to other car companies, shouldn't it?
[1] https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-201...
[2] https://itep.org/tesla-reported-zero-federal-income-tax-in-2...
[3] https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/10/investing/elon-musk-tesla...
[4] https://www.insidehook.com/autos/no-one-exposes-elon-musk-li...
[5] https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-faked-video-in-2016-pr...
[6] https://www.autoevolution.com/news/tesla-semi-gets-debunked-...
[7] https://dawnproject.com/teslas-history-of-faking-demonstrati...
[8] https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/13/24269131/tesla-optimus-r...